Friday, July 27, 2012

I had a really fun opportunity to help out at one of our fabulous LYS's. The Eugene Textile Center caters more to spinners and weavers and dyers (but also has knitting supplies and books and classes). It is an amazing resource and also happens to be very convenient to my home. I end up there a lot.

While helping out, I carded up a batt as a demo and then spun it into this yarn:

And then I was left with figuring out what to do with it!

I wanted to keep it as an entire gradient. I thought a bag would be fun. So I grabbed up a skein of Lamb's Pride (a wool and mohair blend in a singles yarn) in lightly variegated yellow, and then eventually went back and got a second skein in red. I figured, let's try doubleweave! Let's make a bag.

Only I didn't bother to do the math very carefully.

The tube came out really interesting. The gradient is obvious. But the "bag" (if it gets that far) is long and skinny. I'd rather it be about half that and wider, but I got what I got.

I did have fun cutting it off the loom. I cut strands from each side of the warp and wove them into the remaining warp to get little triangles and then braided the last of it. It's a fun effect.

The whole thing is an amusing sample. I washed and dried it mechanically, so it's lightly felted, but if I want it to firm up more I'm going to have to beat it by hand.

It was a fun project, but I'd advise those wanting to "sample" that planning ahead a bit more than I did here might actually yield something usable, rather than something funky you have to scratch your head over to figure out how to use.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Okay, I keep meaning to put this somewhere safe.. and I guess I'd better publish it if I ever want to reference it in the future.

When I work this, I usually link to this pattern in Ravelry's database. But that's not the pattern I started using. I originally received a print-out of some other pattern from my mother, and then I tinkered with it because it knit back an illogical (to me) number of stitches. And, I found I could skip the wrap-and-turn by slipping the first stitch on the way back.

My variation (on each new row, turn your work, even if you haven't knit all the way to the end of the row):

Make pattern 6 total times and bind off on last row. Sew cast on and bind off together.

* On the final row I don't knit back here. Instead I pick up stitches from the cast-on (which I usually do using backwards-loop because that leaves me a nice and non-bulky edge to pick up), and do and equivalent of a 3-needle bind-off to join the first and last rows.

Friday, July 20, 2012

I had someone help me out this year with the kids that needed a special something extra. I also had some lovely, squishy yarn that I wanted to use with pattern published in a recent Handwoven magazine.

It wasn't a perfect fit, but really.. I see a pattern or draft as a stepping-off point. A loose theme around which I want to improvise. Some of my improvisation is yarn (the project called for organic cotton, I had superwash wool; it wanted a heavier weight, I had fingering). Some of it is sett. Some of it is pattern. You have to make all of these dance to your own tune to really make a project work.

But after adjusting for minor differences between what I was told to do and what I had available, I came up with this scarf.

And it's delightfully squishy.

I feel it is a perfect "thank you" for someone that helped me out of a real jam.

I had high hopes for the Tour de Fleece this year. Unrealistically high. I know in the past I've found a minute here and a bit of time there to spin while off on vacation. And of course, I have never been out of town for the Tour until this year. But I completely didn't reckon in the amount of pure fun we'd be having off with the Grandparents.

The Chicago area clocked in at high-90 to 100+ degree temps for the Fourth of July week. It was a huge shock to our systems coming out of the 65-70s of the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Even today the temps haven't yet cracked 60. So when I eyed the lovely batts and silk I had brought along to spin, I can't say that they were very tempting.

But the kite was!

Furthermore, it's awfully hard to want to distract yourself from the pure fun of Disney World in Orlando (also high-90s weather makes you want to grab that nice, frosty glass of lemonade-slurpy and not drag the spindle out of your bag to get the fiber all matted, wet and messy).

And as lovely as the beach vistas are, they also don't do much to inspire pulling out wool and silk.

So, while I had a lovely two weeks away from home, I finished very little spinning. And I'm good with that.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Here's a little more silk in the last light of the day. We spent most of the day at a water park (not so conducive to spinning, I have to say). I seem to have escaped without sunburn, but tomorrow will tell for sure.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Day five. Happy fourth of July, everyone! I hope you had as busy and as wonderful of a day as I did. I spun a wee bit of silk when I had the chance, but spent the rest of the day dodging the heat and enjoying family.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

I haven't posted about our Sheep to Shawl yet. I'd like to go into that in depth. But I also want to say a special "thank you" to Tom and Tracy Livernois of McTavish Farm Shetlands here in Eugene for letting Freya come with me for the Spinner's Lead on Saturday night for the Black Sheep Gathering. She was a sweet soul and I loved getting to spend a little time with her!

(That's the shawl we made, too. It happens to have a bit of Shetland in it!)

Day two. Weekends are busy for us, but I found 15 minutes (it is the Tour de Fleece after all) to sit down and work from one end of the bobbin to the other.

You might notice that I am "cross lacing" my single across the flyer arm. This was an amazing take-away from a class I had with Judith MacKenzie. You often cross-lace the single on antique wheels, but I had never considered how to do it on my Lendrum wheel. Many antique wheel are double-drive, which can be more difficult to adjust for very light tension. Cross-lacing allows you to reduce the take-up which in turn lets you spin much thinner yarn. On the Lendrum wheel, not only does it reduce that take-up tension, but because there are no hooks or guides on the opposite arm it lets the yarn move around a bit more. This means more even filling of the bobbin with less stopping to move the year guide. It's a win-win.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Tour de Fleece, day one, and we are going to try an experiment. Because I'll be out and about for most of this Tour, I'm going to attempt to blog it from my iPad, pictures and all!

Above is my first day of work. I'm better than half-way into four ounces of Julie Spins in a lovely blend of Merino/yak/silk. It is wonderfully saturated in deep shades of pink, aqua and blue. I have two braids of this that I will be plying together, but as it won't be traveling with me, I probably won't complete it until near the end of the Tour.

In the meantime, I will be traveling with two AbbyBatts and a couple ounces of tussah silk from Silk and Shine (I'm really looking forward to these, too).

I'll keep you updated as I can, and in the middle I have a few queued posts that may go up. Happy Tour spinning to you!

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

This pattern is Devonian, and it is part of an amazing new collection called The Sock Report.

Devonian is a pair of toe-up socks that were inspired by my mother, and I have to say that they are pretty special to me because of that.

I wanted to create something to match a shawl I knit for Mom earlier in the year. And it came to me that the increases that create a lovely triangular shawl could also be used to create the gusset increases in a sock.

As you work your way from the toe of this sock, the lace starts as the gusset, and after you turn the heel it goes on to consume the entire leg. I particularly love the detail up the back of the leg where stockinette comes to a dainty point before flowing into the lace above.

While the pictures above are of Devonian knit in Malabrigo Sock, I was able to work with String Theory's Caper yarn for The Sock Report. I can't recommend this yarn highly enough. String Theory dyes a beautiful yarn and I love working with it. It is a Merino/cashmere/nylon blend and wears very well (and is as delicious on your feet when you are done as it is in your hands while you knit it). Oh, yes.. I do like MCN sock yarn!

I love all the patterns in The Sock Report, and I hope you'll have time to stop by and check it out!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Tomorrow I'm going to the Black Sheep Gathering here in Eugene. I'll get up early. I'll drive down to the fairgrounds with a friend, and I'll set up my loom to get ready for the Sheep to Shawl competition.

I'll actually be weaving on this warp.

I spun it. Everything (except the two inches of red) is naturally colored wool. There's Shetland, Romney, Merino (moorit) and others in there. I think one might be Icelandic. We don't know what half the wool is, other than "nice". It came from the estate of Llyn Payne, who was an amazing artist and a collector of many rare and fascinating fleeces.

The red is commercial merino of several different shades of red and a tiny bit of red bamboo blended into a batt. It pops wonderfully against all the neutrals around it.

I love the draft at the top, but we won't be using it. I'll let you see what we decided to use.. .once it's woven, tomorrow!

This is the lovely draft that I originally planned to use tomorrow in our Sheep to Shawl. I had never woven it before, so I measured out some scraps of sock yarn I had on hand.

I really enjoyed weaving it, but after much review we decide that this draft doesn't show itself very well for judging. It is really hard to eyeball the fact that it is evenly beat (and I do beat it evenly and carefully and keep a 45-degree angle on hand to make sure I don't get off and measure every inch or so).

We'll be doing something different tomorrow, and I can't wait to post pictures when it's done.

Monday, April 30, 2012

One of my goals this year is to do a sweater each quarter. I didn't finish on deadine, but here's our first quarter sweater!

Of course, my original plan was to work on sweaters that I had patterns and yarn to do. This has one quality--the yarn is from my stash (mostly). But the pattern? Not so much.

I started with a Noro pattern. Only that pattern was written bottom-up and in pieces that were seamed together. I had a bunch of unrelated colorways of Noro Silk Garden and quickly decided that there was no way I could handle letting it strip willy-nilly and mis-matched! No way!

So the first thing I discarded was "knit in pieces". I began to plan how to knit it as a whole. Then I realized that since I was modifying, and because I'm a long-waisted gal, that knitting bottom-up was a recipe for disaster, too. So now I figured I had to knit it top-down and in one piece.

And of course, there's all the different colorways. What's the best way to deal with Noro's crazy color changes when you want something with continuity? Why, two-row stripes, of course!

So, I began to re-work the sweater. I did the math and plugged numbers into a spreadsheet. Because I wouldn't have seams, I added a two-stitch cable at the raglan shaping. This gives the fabric more structure along that line, much like sewing a seam there would do.

I knit the yoke and as I went I double-checked my gauge. I was able to add that gauge into the spreadsheet and do some adjustments on the fly. When I got through the yoke and moved the arms to spare needle-cables, I knew I needed more ease, so I cast on extra stitches. Then I slowly decreased those stitches away to bring the sweater in under my bust. After that I increased again to give it some swing.

The ribbing eases in rather than switching between stockinette and 1x1 ribbing all at once. I added one purl every 8 stitches in the first row, every 4 in the second and every-other stitch in the third row. This reduces rolling so the ribbing is less likely to flip up.

The buttons were in my stash. I frogged my Versatility a while back. That left me with a big pot of gorgeous buttons to play with. I did briefly consider using three vintage enamel buttons I had on hand, but I was advised to let the yarn shine in this sweater and devise something else for those lovely buttons in a less color-intensive project. It was good advice!

Friday, April 13, 2012

Well, school has certainly thrown a wrench in my schedule. I'm happy to say that I earned an "A+" in Statistics this last term.
With more work, something has got to slide. Since I'm still knitting, spinning, weaving and taking care of the rest of my life it's pretty obvious that blogging went on the back burner (and is going to stay there, unfortunately).

But I don't want to leave you all completely in the dark! Here's a quick run-down of some of what I have finished for February (and March will follow in its own post).

What we have here is a spindle project I finally completed. It is Spunky Eclectic Merino spun up into a 3-ply yarn. I've been working on the single off-and-on for several months. I wound it all onto a bobbin and divided it by weight in order to make 3-ply yarn. It's very fast using an electric bobbin winder. The yarn came out lovely and squishy, plump and round from the 3-ply. I do love a 3-ply yarn.

I also finished this 2-ply yarn. It is the last shipment from the first year of the Pro-Verbial shawl club from A Verb for Keeping Warm. One ply is superfine alpaca and the other is 50/50 cashmere/silk. They are both luscious blends. I really want to be madly deeply in love with AVFKW fiber, but I find that the natural dying process is simply not very kind to unspun fiber. It is rarely in the shape that I expect from ultra-premium fibers. I enjoyed the club and the patterns, but I did not re-up this year for more.

Since I have a lovely friend with a new baby, baby knitting ensued. This is the ubiquitous Baby Surprise Jacket from Elizabeth Zimmerman's book, The Opinionated Knitter. I used a fibonacci sequence for the stripes, which always comes out looking fantastic. The yarn is a very nice cotton yarn I picked up as mill-ends. I bought a pound, so there was a significant amount left over and I thought.. why not a blanket?!

But I sure as heck wasn't going to knit a blanket! I dislike knitting scarves, and a blanket is a scarf x100. It was a great opportunity to play on the loom. I consulted local experts, did a lot of math, and came up with a great plaid blanket that I had difficulty giving away!

We also had a February birthday. We wanted to do a cooking party, so I put together these child-sized aprons out of towels from Target and some grosgrain ribbon. They're adorable and easy!

There is lots more for March, but I don't have photos of everything yet. I'll have to get them taken, soon... especially since there are April projects to share, too!

Monday, February 27, 2012

It seems the year is already flying by. Much of my time is taken in preparing for class or actually going to it, but there are still a few minutes from time to time where I am getting other work done. (I am actually doing quite well with Statistics for those that are curious. I find some of it very interesting and the rest obscure enough to be annoying, but I'm doing my best to learn it all anyway.)

I do have some lovely things from the end of December and January finished. This is another turned-point-twill scarf. It is exactly the same draft as the scarf for my dad last year, and the same base of yarn, but this is woven with a lovely blue-grey warp and aquamarine weft. I beaded the fringe, rather than cutting it short. What it yields is a lovely, feminine scarf, instead of the very manly version I gave for Christmas. This was made in trade for Laura of Textiles A Mano here in town. She's the dyer of this fantastic yarn and a wonderful resource here in town.

This is "Nebula", a Falkland batt from Into the Whirled. Cris is also a fantastic dyer and I worked with her in collaboration on the Solar Flare shawlette. This batt is one of her amazing offerings. With such lovely colors, I didn't want to loose them to too much blending of the fibers. I rolled this batt perpendicular to the lay of the fibers and then carefully pulled it into one long length of roving that changed from orange at one end into light blue at the other. It is spun up as a relatively low-twist single and should knit up into some amazing lace, once I figure out an appropriate pattern for it!

Here is some more amazing Textiles A Mano offerings. I received some lovely blended batts from my son for Christmas (Daddy outdid himself taking the kids shopping!). I plied it with two ounces of dyed tussah silk that I purchased from Laura earlier this year. The outcome is some gloriously subtle yarn that is going in to my "jacket weaving" bag for later use. I'm really excited about that project and need to figure out some weft year very soon.

This is two ounces if impulse purchase. It is probably Jacob wool. I spun it up lofty using long-draw. Since the wool was actually roving instead of top, this worked great! (Combed top is often called roving, since both come in the same long rope of fiber, but they are not the same beast. Combed top is very aligned fibers because they have been, well, combed. Roving may look very similar, but it's a long strip of carded fibers and far more suited to long-draw spinning. Combed top is better spun worsted and yields a smooth, strong yarn. Woolen spinning yields a fluffy, soft, hairy yarn that is less durable than worsted yarn, but much warmer.)

Last, but not least, are the Greta towels (another lovely Christmas gift, this one from my husband). These are made from cotton-linen blend yarn and feel wonderful! I already have them in my kitchen to be used. My daughter made the amusing comment that she didn't want to use them and get them dirty! I had to convince her they are made to be used. After all, I can always make more in the future! I'd hate to run out of reason to weave!

That sure seems like a lot of work! But really, each project went quite quickly. And since the house is clean, homework is done, tests are being passed in flying colors and kids are all up to date on their craft and homework, clearly we're doing something right around here!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

I'd like to say this post would be about all the wonderful fiberish things I'm working on at the moment, but sadly it is not.

I'm busy. Very busy. I'm still busy knitting and spinning and weaving, but it has been even harder than usual to take time out to snap appropriate pictures and jot down my thoughts on the matter. Mostly because I have homework.

Math homework.

Specifically, Statistics.

I rather like math. I'm very much enjoying Statistics this term. It is certainly not the last class I will be taking because I have embarked down the road of gathering all my appropriate prerequisite courses to apply (eventually) to Oregon State University in their Pharmacy program. Since I already have a B.S. in Chemistry, these courses are relatively few. (Very relatively, because there's still quite a bit to take.) But because I am also a full-time mom for two youngsters, I can't exactly go haring off full-time. So I'll be squeezing in a course here and a course there as time and schedule allow, and sadly that will probably be squeezing out some of the lovely time I have doing (and recording) my crafting.

There are still patterns on the way and fun things happening, too. I'll be sure to check back in as often as I can. Hope to see you, then!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

I love socks. After my first few inevitable scarf and hat projects, socks were the next thing on my "must learn to knit" list. And a 2009 sock club was an extra-special treat from my husband.

After working my way through that club, I moved on to Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters. I love this book. After walking through the very basic steps of sock construction through others' patterns, this book lets you leap off into the deep end of your own ideas.

And in comes Inglenook. Cat teaches us that our gusset increases can go just about anywhere they want to go, and I know that lace is made up of paired increases and decreases. So what happens if you leave out the decreases?

What you get is a pattern that grows on its own in a very natural manner. And you get a sock that grows without an obvious gusset.

Inglenook grew from one of my favorite lace patterns. Each motif reminds me of the licking tongue of a flame. These flamelets grow down your leg from a spiky picot edge and then turn under the heel in a cushy slip-stitch reinforced sole. The socks are wonderfully comfortable in open-back clogs.

Toes were something else that came to mind when knitting from other patterns. Knitting is wonderful in that it stretches and conforms. If you give it a shape reasonably close to what you want it to be, it will accommodate small differences. But you can also shape it to be exactly as you want.

Traditional toes decrease equally on the left and right side. But if you look at your foot, the big toe extends straight out from the body of the foot. I really like this sock's shaped toe to fit the line of the foot more naturally, and it's not that much of a stretch from a normal wedge-shaped toe.

And then, we have yarn...

Image copyright Jamie Dixon and
Twist Collective, used with permission.

While I tried these out first with yarn I had in my own stash, I had the opportunity to knit with some really lovely yarn, KnitGlobal Pollika sock yarn. This 4-ply yarn is fantastic for socks. It is a wool/nylon blend with a really firm twist. The four plies make the stitches just pop (and I'd imagine it would knit into some really amazing cables and twisted-stitch patterns) and it has a lovely, deep color. It knits up into a smooth fabric that I couldn't wait to put on my own feet (and did quite a few times before giving these babies their final careful wash and block to send them off). It's a real treat to have been able to knit with it.

All in all, Inglenook takes a whole bunch of individual design elements I really like and combines them into a cohesive whole. And in them my toes are just as toasty and warm as they would be if tucked up close to the flames dancing in my fireplace.

The pattern for Inglenook is available from the Twist Collective in the Winter 2011 issue.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

I ran my crafting life around a "four ounce rule" last year. Each month I tried to spin four ounces of fiber, knit four ounces of handspun, and in some other way work four ounces of commercial yarn. The idea was to work down the stash... which would have been quite effective if I hadn't bought more stuff. On the other hand, I did manage to meet or exceed the overall goal and spun over three pounds of yarn, knit at least that much and wove quite a bit, too. It was a very productive year. And a lot of it left my home as shop samples or family gifts, so that's less for me to store.

This year is going to be similar, but with the added caveat of no new stuff. I have half a mind for some small exemption for weaving materials as my weaving stash is a whopping two and one-half cones of 8/2 cotton (and two kits received for Christmas). At the very least I want to limit purchases to a planned-project basis. No more collecting "just because it's pretty". I have plenty of that. I need to go USE what I already bought "just because it was pretty".

Here is my list of goals for 2012:

Knit four sweaters (one every three months). I have yarn. I have patterns or at least plans for the pattern. I just need to Do. It. These will be: Finish my [Wheatgrass Truffle](/patterns/library/wheatgrass-truffle). [Primrose Path](/patterns/library/primrose-path-2). Something from Knit Swirl to use up Noro Transitions that Mom gave me. Some Other Sweater, possibly the [Honeybee Cardigan](/patterns/library/honeybee-cardigan) since I have Sundara yarn for that. If not the Honeybee, then maybe a personal design with the handspun I originally created for the WiseSweater.

If sweater knitting is finished before the 3 month deadline, then 4-oz projects will be selected to fill in the open months. These can be knitting or weaving. Must be done *from stash materials*.

Spin some stuff. Let's say 4 oz/month again. That was pretty reasonable. Again, spin the stash and not new fiber.

Finish spinning, weave and sew a jacket. Some of this will be the 4oz/month. I already have at least half the yarn spun that I believe I will use for the warp. I need to figure out weft. And I have a seamstress on hand that says she'll help since my sewing skills are not as well developed as my spinning or even weaving. A purchase for appropriate weft materials is permissible. This is a big project and I want it to be Just Right.

Keep up with classwork. I'm going to be taking one class per term. This is going to cut into crafting time. So it's important to make a goal of keeping up with it and not putting it on the back burner for more fun stuff.

Friday, December 30, 2011

The goal: To spin 4oz of fiber, knit 4oz of handspun and work 4oz of millspun each monthDid I do it? Yes! On average I met each of my goals. Some months I did more, some less, but I worked through a lot of materials this year!

However, I didn't meet the spirit of the goal.. which was to use stash. Many of my projects required new fiber or new yarn to complete. Sometimes I bought new yarn/fiber just because I wanted to (and really, who doesn't?). So if this goal was "Production 2011" then I certainly produced. Did I reduce my stash? Not so much.

Next year, I want to work from my stash. In fact, I'd like to work entirely from my stash for both spinning and knitting materials. (I am leaving an exception for weaving, because I don't have much yarn suitable and may need to purchase particular yarn for projects I have in mind. Still, I'd like to keep weaving-purchasing limited to planned-projects only. No "just because it's on sale" buying!) I will not be making any pledges as to how much I get done each month, but I hope you'll join me for a "work from what you've got" year!